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By 2030, AI data centers could take a bigger share of carbon emissions than flights do currently Running AI compute on phones could offer a glimmer of hope for reducing the tech’s mounting power use. Millie Giles 6/27/25 The AI boom has come with a slew of side effects, but beyond social, geopolitical, and economic implications, the growing number of data centers used to power the tech could have a devastating environmental impact — and it might come sooner than we initially imagined.  New forecasts from Accenture, reported by Axios on Wednesday, show that carbon emissions from AI data centers could increase 11-fold through the decade, accounting for a 3.4% share of total global CO2 emissions by 2030 in the “base case” scenario. That’s a considerably greater share of total emissions than the entire aviation industry — a sector often admonished for its carbon footprint — notched at the last count, when the flying business took 2.5% of global CO2 emissions. It would also exceed the emissions contributed by both Germany (1.75%) and Saudi Arabia (1.58%) combined in 2022, per estimates from the IEA.